Margaret BauerThe biggest week in music, KWUR Week, kicks off this Sunday, Feb. 20. Brought to you by KWUR DJs, the upcoming Week features free live shows from critically acclaimed trance, hip-hop and rock acts including Dr. Surgeon, Scratch from The Roots and The Wrens. The shows are free to Wash U students with ID, and free pizza and refreshments will also be offered.
This year’s KWUR Week promises to be bigger than the Weeks of the past due to the widespread popularity of the performers and the intense ad campaign of its DJs. KWUR Promotional Director Elliot Darvick started an advertising “blitz”: flyering, tabling at Mallinckrodt and creating an informational Web site, KWURweek.com. So far, Wash U students’ feedback for the shows has been enormous. Before the advertising campaign began, KWURweek.com tracked nearly 300 visitors.
So get there early to ensure a space at the front and a chance at the refreshments. Darvick encourages, “Everyone go! There’ll be amazing acts in an intimate atmosphere, all offered to you for free. There’s no reason not to be there.”
Here is a list of the acts performing this upcoming KWUR Week-come one, come all!
Dance Show:
D.J. Surgeon
Location: The U-Lounge / 609U
Date: Sunday, Feb. 20
Time: 9 p.m.
Free to Wash. U. Students with ID,
$10 for everyone else
Ranked as one of the top 10 DJs in the world, DJ Surgeon crafts energetic techno and industrial music. His unusual talent for creating intricate, dark and danceable songs by bridging seemingly incoherent bits of loops and other sounds has made him an internationally known DJ. For the past four years, Surgeon only played outside the United States; now he brings his driving beats to Saint Louis at U-Lounge this Sunday. Hailing from the U.K., DJ Surgeon, aka Anthony Child, began his dynamic trance career with the “Surgeon E.P.” Several successful records later, most specifically on the popular trance label Counterbalance, gave Surgeon the momentum to gather an international reputation as a talented and unique DJ and producer. According to KWUR Dance Director Bob Stolzberg, Surgeon, who has mixed tracks for Mogwai, Faust and Coil, is the trance equivalent of the Beatles: “It’s really special that we got DJ Surgeon. He’s just one of those big acts that you never would expect to see here … I want to share him with my friends; he’s one of those few incredible people who do magical things.”
Along with DJ Surgeon, DJs Rob F and Dan Dyfonix are also scheduled to perform. Rob F is the longest running DJ in St. Louis, boasting six albums over a 10-year period. Wash U’s own Dan Dyfonix, who works in the AV department, as Stolzberg describes is a “good ol’ Wash U guy, who happens to play incredible music.”
Hip-Hop Show:
Main Flow, Scratch
Location: The Gargoyle
Date: Thursday, Feb. 24
Time: Doors @ 8 p.m.
Free to Wash. U. Students with ID,
$5 for everyone else
KWUR is also pleased to bring in Scratch and Main Flow for Thursday night’s show, two relatively underground hip-hop artists with incredible potential and a lot to prove.
Scratch, the phenomenal beatboxer who got his start working with long-time hip-hop act the Roots, will no doubt blow you away with his oral imitations of record-scratching. If you’ve ever listened to a Roots track and thought you were hearing a sample or fancy turntable work, it was Scratch’s mouth. He can flawlessly impersonate vocal samples, bass lines, drum breaks and all the scratching that goes with them using only his yapper. Even for those who don’t particularly like hip-hop, it’s a mind-blowing process to watch.
Main Flow is a Cincinatti-based MC with real vision and talent. He was a member of the little-known but locally loved group Mood, which also featured Hi-Tek, who went on to achieve greatness with Talib Kweli in Reflection Eternal. Kweli was just one of the guests on Main Flow’s 2004 release “Hip Hopulation,” which also featured guest appearances by Black Thought of the Roots, Raekwon and Killah Priest. Yoni Sarason, KWUR Hip-Hop Director couldn’t be more excited about Main Flow’s involvement: “Not many people have heard of Mood, but they were one of the most amazing things to come out of Cincinnati. Main Flow’s very much in the same vein as old-school Kweli. He’s not just talking about mainstream issues-for example, people talk about dying for hip-hop-but Main Flow asks whether they’re really prepared for that.”
Sarason is also hoping to get Scratch and Main Flow onto the stage together for some freestyling. “We’d love to see the DJ start out playing the track for Main Flow, then have them drop out to reveal it was Scratch doing everything all along,” he says.
Hip-Hop Show:
Brother Ali
Location: The Gargoyle
Date: Friday, Feb. 25
Time: Doors @ 8 p.m.
Free to Wash. U. Students with ID,
$5 for everyone else
Brother Ali should be bringing some true hip-hop expertise to campus on Friday night. The Minneapolis-based MC records for the Rhymesayers label, the home of such current rap luminaries as Atmosphere and MF Doom. After debuting in 2000 with the cassette-only release “Rights of Passage,” Ali toured relentlessly with acts like Guru, Mos Def, De La Soul and El-P, wowing audiences with his solid flow and explorations into themes ranging from parenthood to religion to good, old-fashioned hip-hop braggadocio. As Sarason says, “Brother Ali has the ability to step into the building, no matter where he is, and rock the show.”
Greater success came in 2003 with his debut LP “Shadows on the Sun,” produced by Atmosphere member ANT. The record drew positive reviews from publications such as Pitchfork Media, but Sarason says his latest, the “Champion EP,” is even better: “It’s done so well. Ant is just incredible, sampling everything from Earth, Wind, and Fire to reggae songs. It’s great just to listen to the music, even though Ali is a great MC himself.” Those interested in checking out Ali’s work should listen to “Room With a View,” “Champion (Remix)” and the oddly titled “Forrest Whitaker.” Fans of Slug, Sage Francis and the Definitive Jux label should love it, and anyone who just wants to nod their heads to some great hip-hop while sipping cool refreshments should come on out.
There are also several opening acts scheduled for the hip-hop shows, including Honors English, who were awarded the Riverfront Times’ Best Hip-Hop Artist award last year. Toy, a female MC, will be opening for Brother Ali. The point of bringing together such acts, says Sarason, is the hope that “people can come and enjoy themselves and be open-minded to people they’ve never heard before, to see what’s new in hip-hop and what’s real hip-hop, not the corporate, overproduced mainstream stuff. College is supposed to be about expanding horizons and experiencing new things.” We couldn’t agree more.
Rock Show:
The Wrens
Location: The Gargoyle
Date: Saturday, Feb. 26
Time: Doors @ 7 p.m.
Free to Wash. U. Students with ID,
$5 for everyone else
Some bands bust their asses and never get any respect. The Wrens worked hard, were forgotten and then came back with a vengeance, winning one for all the “little bands that could” out there. Their 2003 release “The Meadowlands” received a 91, the third highest composite score of the year, from Metacritic.com, which compiles ratings from all other Web sites. Only the White Stripes and a Led Zeppelin live album (which shouldn’t actually count) beat them out. The universal acclaim must have been a bit shocking for the New Jersey band, who recorded it in their basements in between dead-end jobs seven years after their first album, 1996’s “Secausus.”
“They’re just really honest, hardworking guys who love what they’re doing,” says KWUR Activities Director Scott Parton. “They proved it with all the shit they went through with their first label.” The company in question was Grass Records, who had the “privilege” of discovering Creed. Rather than be molded to its record label’s vision (“We must create the next Creed!”), the Wrens got the hell out and now enjoy a relationship with Absolutely Kosher Records.
“The Meadowlands” gave the formerly spastic band a chance to mellow out and vent the many problems they’d experienced in the interim, whether girls, jobs or life in general. The result is an album with incredibly catchy hooks but embittered lyrics, as on the positively chirpy “This Boys is Exhausted,” “Hopeless,” which builds on a repeated guitar line, and especially “Happy,” which is anything but and states, rather unpersuasively, “I wanted you / But I’m over that now / I’m over it!” Fans of bands like Spoon, the Shins and Death Cab for Cutie should be pleased with the Wrens on Saturday night. We’ll see you there.